Unite against Facism – Woman in rally against the BNP at Dagenham, 2006
Today, 27th January is National Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the tragic loss of life in the genocides of World War II, in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. The date is the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
At the foot of the tree
I’m not attending any of the events that take place today, but have taken pictures related to it in the past. One of the annual ceremonies is held at the Soviet War Memorial in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth park, next to the Imperial War Museum where a small tree was planted in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust 1939-45.
Martin Stern leads the walkers from Cambridge to Downing St
One inspiring man who I met on a number of demonstrations (and photographed) was Leon Greenman, Auschwitz Survivor 98288, born in Whitechapel, who well into his nineties took an active part in campaigning against fascism, both through educational work and through the Anti-Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism, who sadly died last year. Another survivor was Martin Stern, taken by the Nazis in Holland at the age of five and one of only around a hundred of 15,000 children sent to Terezin to survive, who in 2007 led the Cambridge to London ‘Walk 4 Darfur’, part of the 2007 International Day of Action on Darfur.
Roma were also persecuted and killed by the Nazis, and in 2004 I photographed the March Against Racism on Roma Nation Day, while a few months ago I was with them outside the Italian Embassy in a protest against ethnic cleansing taking place now in Italy.